THE CASE OF WILLIAM A. WIELAND

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP64B00346R000100300060-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 17, 2004
• Sequence Number: 60
• Publication Date: February 6, 1962
• Content Type: OPEN

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD.--.SENATE
grain-and such a program would probabiq
wipe out .the entire grain surplus.
The 1967 Presidential Commission, how-
ever, iDund that no blend of .less than 10
percent would be practical, that this would
ret~uire over 2 billion 'bushels of grain-
more than was available in surplus then--
and that plants to process such an amount
would cost about ~2 billion-and would
p;Obably have to be built by the Govern-
ment-ancl that total cost to the public, in
higher prices for. gasoline alone, would be
aver $1 billion a year.
Major problem involved in making cheap
alcohol from grain is to remove the protein
before fermentation of starch for alcohol
(or before starch is taken out for other in-
dustrial uses) in order to upgrade the protein
into a human food. If'this problem could
be licked, the resulting alcohol would be a
byproduct, with the cost then low enough
to compete with oil in making gasoline.
The Presidential Commission acknowl-
edged that a vigorous research program
might find a salui=lon to the problem and
that possibly the- byproduct alcohol cost
might be low enough to compete with pet-
roleum.
On the Seziate floor, Senator CvRTIs
pushed for a nevv research effort on the pro-
tein extraction problem-saying (as he hoe
many times in the past) : "It has long been
my hope we could. use alcohol produced from
grain as a part of .our motor fuel"
He said that "Unproved methods" of up-
grading the protein for humans would make
protein Worth many times its value as a
livestock food and that the alcohol will then
"become more or less a byproduct and it
can be sold at a price to compete with gaso-
line.
C'vaxrs said oil companies "have no valid
grour}d for alarm over the 11iauguration of
sgch a program"-the petroleum industry
should be interested in solving the farm
problem ' (which Ys a big item in the Gov-
ernment's budget)-and farmers are oil's
best customers... CIIRTrs also asserted that
airy-gas would still be distributed by the
petroleum industry and that "they (oil com-
13anies) will not lose-rather they will gain."
Very truly yours,
MILSURN PETTY.
J ... JAMEa M. COISINa.
Mr. CURTIS. We welcome the com-
ment and interestof these spokesmen for
the petroleum. industry. There is no con-
flict of interest between the farmers who
want n outlet for their surpluses and the
petro~eum industry when all the facts
THE CASE OF WILLIAM A.
WIELAND
Mr. TOWER. Mr. President, I want
to say for the record that I am glad the
Internal Security Subcommittee is pur-
suing an inquiry into the State Depart-.
went security risk cases identified by Re-
porter Sarah McClendon at the Presi-
dent's news conference- January 24, 1962.
The case of William A. Wieland
especially deserves the closest: possible
investigation. Here is a man, a State
Department official, who has been de-
pounced by four former U.S. Ambassa-
dors in .public testimony as untrust-
worthy, incompetent, - a supporter of
leftist elements in Latin America, and as
instrumental in the fall of Cuba to com-
munism.
I regret that the President saw fit to
leap to the defense of accused security
risks in such an impetuous fashion. I
am sorry that he turned aside Mrs. Mc-
Clendon's question in such a manner as
to cause it to be interpreted as a rebuke.
As the Kilgore (Tex.) News-Herald
commented:
Press conferences are for asking questions,
not sweeping them under the rug. If there
are any more questions about security risks,
let them be asked, even at the risk of re-
bukes. The Nation needs to knout about such
things.
I believe that the majority of Amer-
icans share my concern regarding this
incident. I believe they share my con-
cern about accused and known security
risks occupying important positions in
the State Department.
My mail has been heavy in quantity
and 1Q0 percent in support of Mrs. Mc-
Clendon's inquiry into these State De-
partment security cases. I have heard
that White House mail has Aredaminate-
lY supported Mrs. McClendon. I have
been advised that the various press
headquarters in Washington have re-
ceived mail addressed to Mrs. McClen-
don, supporting her.
I quote the following excerpts from
mail received in my office:
Long Beach, Calif.:
Mra. Sarah McClendon, by her courageous
action, has opened the door for a long over-
due probe of the State Department.
Midland, Tex.:
Yo fellow Texan, Sarah McClendon,
asked President Kennedy the X64,000 ques-
tion that has been a matter of concern for
years to those of us who are fearful of our
State Department in these perilous times.
Venice, Calif.:
Heartiest congratulations, plus to Sarah
McClendon.
San Diego, Calif.:
Sarah McClendon's questions should be the
wedge to open all doors, Offer a bill to give
her the DSC or DSM.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous con-
sent to place several articles and edi-
torials on this subject in the RECORD at
this point.
There being no objection, the articles
and editorials were ordered to be printed
in the RECORD, as follows:
[From the Omaha World-Herald, Jan.- 30,
1ssa~
THE WIELAND AFFAI&
One year ago this month the conservative
magazine National Review charged that a
man who went by the name of Arturo Guil-
lermo Montenegro was once a terrorist in
Cuba, and that with the backing of Franklin
Roosevelt's Under Secretary of State, Sumner
Weiles, this man rose rapidly in the State
Department to become head of the Caribbean
desk under his real name, William Arthur
Wieland.
National Review also said that two former
Ambassadors to Cuba had linked Mr. Wie-
land to the Castro takeover. The magazine
said Arthur Gardner r.ad told the Senate In-
ternal Security Subcommittee that William
Wieland had supported leftist elements in
Latin America and had contended that the
Castro movement was not Communist. Earl
T. Smith said Mr. Wieland was a Castro
admirer.
Robert C. Hill, former Ambassador to Mex-
ico, testified that Mr. Wieland was neither
a competent officer nor a man who could
be trusted. And William D. Pawley, former
1591
Ambassador to Brazil and Peru, said Mr. Wie-
land's activities in Rio de Janiero were "of a
nature that was displeasing to me although
there Was nothing specific I could put my
hands on."
This was apparently the extent of pub-
lished information which was derogatory to
Mr. Wieland until Correspondent Sarah Mc-
Clendon identified him at a Presidential press
conference last week as one of two weli-
known security risks. The President denied
the two men were security risks, and said he
hoped Mrs. McCiendon's question had not
done harm to the men's reputations.
We surmise that those sharp wards will
not mark the end of the Wieland affair. The
American people are entitled to know more
about this man's background. If it is as
clear and clean as the President says, Mr,
Wieland will have nothing to lose and much
to gain by a-full revelation oP his past.
[From the El Paso Times]
EVERYDAY EVENTH
(By W. J. Hooten)
Sarah McClendon, who has been Washing-
ton correspondent for the Times since 1947,
found herself in the news again as the re-
sult of asking a question of President Sen-
nedy at his press conference last week.
Which caused Associated Press Writer Ar-
thur L. Edson to observe:
"Nobody-especially a President of the
United States-has ever been able to ignore
Sarah McClendon,
"This plump, reddish-haired correspondent
for 19 newspapers from Texas to New Eng-
land has always had a knack for irritating
a Chief Executive:'
Writing about Sarah at the Presidential
press conferences, Edson said:
"In theory a President can answer or ig-
nore anyone he wants to.
"In practice he usually recognizes the most
persistent and the loudest.
"Here Sarah McClendon was in her ele-
ment.
"She uauaiky gets a seat up near the front,
and leaps quickly to her feet. Possibly no
reporter has asked as many questions as she
ha8.
"Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower
used to seem particularly nettled by her,
and-or so it seemed to other reporters-lee
would play little games by pointing to those
around her and acting as iY he didn't see
her at a11.
"But, sooner or later, her persistence paid
08, and he would nod her way."
It is difficult to decide whether AP Writer
Edson was being complimentary to Sarah
McClendon, or whether he Was just doing
some factual reporting the way he saw it.
GETS ENCOURAGEMENT
After Sarah's brush with President Ken-
nedy last week arie wrote me that telegrams
and long-distance calls of Congratulations
and encouragement came from all parts oP
the country. She said several offers of
"money ii needed" were made. She wrote
that a member of the New York Stock Ex-
change interrupted transactions "on the
floor" to call to offer backing and to say, "If
you need money let me know."
A group of women in Mesa, Ariz., called
Sarah to offer their encouragement and
added, "If you need any letters written, let
us know:'
A 6TANCH DEMOCRAT -
Ihave known Sarah McClendon personally
for 15 years, I admire her spunk, although
at times I fear she is a little persistent at
Presidential press conferences.
I'm wondering what her brush with Presi-
dent Kennedy will bring. Sarah is a stanch
Democrat and she was for Kennedy even
before he received the nomination.
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CONGRESSIONAL R~C~KI~ ~
But the point is that his strikeouts; ought
to be reported as faithfully as his home
runs-for a very special reason. It is an
open secret that Mr. Kennedy plays favor-
ites, bringing writers and publishers as guests
to the White House, thereby setting up a
situation for reciprocal trade of favors. Al-
ready it is routine conversation at the
National Press Club to speculate whether an
extreme "snow job" column of flattery by a
non-Kennedy columnist, or a cozy, "inside"
think piece by an influential journalist, is a
bread-and-butter note.
There is no harm, and a lot of good, in the
President's consorting with newspaper
friends. But let_'s not permit sweet friend-
ship to cloy the acid of skepticism in which
every political writer's pen should be dipped.
[From the Kilgore (Tex,) News Herald, Jan?
28, 1962]
_ ASK A QUESTION
-~
Feba ua~?~~6
respectable men. We know now that free-
dom is much more complicated than that.
Instead of being the natural canditign of
man and society, freedom is something that
a few men in a few places have achieved
through effort, dedication, self-discipline
and social ingenuity. Freedom is the excep-
tion in history, not the rule; it is what men
seek rather than what they have.
But they seek it nonetheless, and therein
lies the hope for humanity. The instinct
for self-fulfillment through free choice is
obviously rooted deep in the human con-
dition. It grows in vigor as education and
economic growth and political responsibility
liberate man from the chains into which
most men are still born.
- A .FEARFUL BURDEN
.... MaS, MCCLENDON VERSUS J.F.K.
-',,~~CC~ (By Holmes Alexander)
President Kennedy held his 21st Presi-
dential news conference January 24, and it
was a so-so performance.
Not even a cub reporter would write such
a lead as that-a stale, listless, so-what sen-
tence-but I have a reason. A whole lot of
daily reporters praised Mr. Kenned.y's last
performance (James Reston of the New York
Times said J.F.K. was "in his glory") so far
beyond its merits that the bug of suspicion
begins to bite.
What goes on here? A cult of the per-
sonality?. A conspiracy of illusion about
the Emperor's new clothes? Murray Marder
of the Washington Post and Bill Knighton
of the Baltimore Sun were among those
who overpraised the handsome, articulate,
popular world-famous young man who is
often brilliant but who, last week (and the
slump
i
.
cuous
week before) was in a consp
His most publicized rejoinder to Reporter rM~stdull stuff so fai'as producing anything
Saran McClendon was not the icy, sharp, P Y
shrewd riposte which some front-page ac- -new for the reader. Questions are antici-
counts made it appear. Mrs. McClendon paced and the President, who has been
got by far the better of the exchange. She brItsaheasunexaectedsand sometimes criti-
mentioned "two well-known security risks" P
and Instantly named them when the Presi- cal, question that upsets a President, as
dent challenged her. She was taloned. and President Kennedy was upset when Reporter
merciless for the kill. He was flustered and Sarah McClendon indicated that two well-
so much on the defensive that his gram- known security risks had been put on. a
mar and sequenee broke down, giving me a State Department .task force to help reor-
nostalgic sense of return to the Eisenhower ganize its security office. In the flareup,
era, mucY. was made of Kennedy rebuking the
Moreover, Por the first time 3n anybody's reporter, and how irked he was over the in-
memory; the conference was abruptly terms- cadent. In this case, the feelings of Presi-
.. Hated nearly 6 minutes?ahead of the sus- dent Kennedy are of little consequence, and
tomary half hour. To the astonishment of even any detriment to the character of the
all around me, there came an abrupt, men in question is not as Important as any
"Thank you, Mr. President," almost as ii possible detriment to the Nation's interests.
Press Secretary Salinger had signaled from The point is that if there is any possibility
the stage for somebody to get his man out of security risks being on the administra-
of the ring. lion's staff, such a question as posed by the
While the President quit early, Mrs. Mc- reporter is pertinent. Press conferences are
Glendon was quickly surrounded by a stellar for asking questions, not sweeping them
group of reporters, led by Eddie Folliard, of under the rug. If there are any more ques-
the Washington Post, and Bob Donovan, of lions about security risks, let them be asked,
her for an impromptu press conference of her needs ato know saboutrauchethings.e Nation
-own.
Mr. Kennedy's admirers in the press cred-
ited him with quick- thinking in coming to
the defense of William Arthur Wieland and
J. Clayton Miller, who Mrs. McClendon named
as "security risks." My opinion is that Mr.
Kennedy made one of the big blunders of
his White House career, J. Clayton Miller
is a new man in town, but William .Arthur
Wieland, whatever his official security rating,
is almost indefensible_ as a State Department
public servant.
No less than four former ambassadors-
Smith, Pawley, .Gardiner, and Hill-have
denounced Wieland by name as instrumental
in the fall of Cuba to communism. Both
the Eisenhower and Kennedy administra-
lions have found Wieland to be an embar-
rassment and have tried to hide him in the
State Department's organizational maze.
Wieland is an _ ex-newspaperman wlio left
journalism and entered diplomacy under sir-
cumstances that the President of the United
States ought not to be defending. Had Mr.
Kennedy, a former member of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee and a former
newsman, really been as informed and quick-
witted as ballyhooed in the press notices, he
- would have known enough about Wieland to
play this one some other way.
- When Mr. Kennedy is good in a press con-
ference, he is very, very good, and he is never
really bad except by his own high standards:
He pays the penalty extracted from all cham-
pions and artists of being under pressure to
deliver a masterpiece at every attempt.
Perhaps it is uncharitable to hold a top
national leader. up to tests that are not by
any means the full measurement of his
powers and performance.
Freedom is not only hard to get; it is
hard to peep. The preservation of freedom
requires the fashioning of institutions
strong enough to preserve continuity, flex-
ible enough to acknowledge change, resilient
enough to transmit vitality and challenging
enough to stimulate creativity. It requires,
in short, a varied and subtle social discipline.
But it also requires self-discipline-be-
cause freedom emancipates man from ex-
ternal authority and thereby concentrates
the obligation of responsibility on his own
mind and his own conscience. "Liberty
means responsibility; ' said Bernard Shaw.
"That is why most men dread it."
Some men have found the strain of free-
dom intolerable. "Men will cry aloud at
last," Doatoievsky's (;rand Inquisitor warns
us, "that the truth is not in freedom, for
the fearful burden of free choice imposes
too many cares, too many unanswerable
anxieties."
To be free is to choose; and to choose is
to make up one's mind; and to make up
one's own mind in the whirling universe in
which we live is to indulge in the most pain-
ful and hazardous of pastimes-that is, the
taking of thought. This is perhaps the
harshest cost of freedom.
Cogito, ergo sum, said Descartes; to think
is to think for oneself and to define one-
- self by the thought. Those who let others
do their thinking for them have ceased to
be free.
But the act of thought imposes its own
responsibility. To think effectively is to
think honestly, soberly, carefully, intelli-
gently. ThougY t is one thing, emotional
self-indulgence is another. Responsible de-
mocracy requires that the two be not
confused.
If I were asked to suggest the first cost
of freedom, I would say that it is the re-
nunciation of easy solutions. The mark of
the dogmatist is that he is still in grade
school and thinks he can find all the answers
in the back of the book. He knows the
truth, and everyone who rejects his truth
is either a knave or a fool.
Every irritation in life, he believes, has a
simple cause; every obstacle a simple explan-
O
SOLUTION TO PROBLEMS OF
FREEDOM
Mr. PELL. Mr. President, recently, I
11ad an opportunity to read some ex-
cerpts from a speech given by Arthur
Schlesinger, Jr., before the California
Federation of Young Democrats. As
usual, I found Mr. Schlesinger's remarks
profound and stimulating. In his most
thoughtful address, he stresses that
there are no easy answers to the chal-
lenges which face us around the world
today.
Mr. President, it is indeed the time to
beware of false prophets and those who
promise snappy or back-of-the-book
solutions for the struggle for freedom. fanatic as "a man who does what he thinks
It gives me great pleasure to ask unani- th' Lord wud do if He only knew th' facts
mous consent that excerpts from Mr. in th` case.?
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.'s, brilliant ad- THE FOOLISH FEW.
dress before the California Federation As a people, we are dedicated to free
of Young Democrats be printed in the choice, and we can therefore hardly com-
RECORD. plain if some of our fellow citizens choose
There being no objection, the excerpts foolishly. Throughout our history there
Were Ordered to be printed in the RECORD, Repubic was in soiree terribleedange t pere
as follows: petrated by a clique of sinister conspirators.
No BACK-OF-THE-BOOK SOLUTIONS IN In the 1820'x, honest men tried to save
FREEDOM us from the conspiracy of the Masons. In
(By Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.) -the 18b0's, the Know-Nothings tried to save
I am glad to see that the theme of your us from the immigrant conspiracy. In the
convention is "The Cost of Freedom," fora 1890'x, the American Protective Association
pervading illusion of the 19th century was tried to save us from the Catholic conspiracy.
that freedom was free, a costless benefit In the 1920'x, the Ku Klux Klan tried to save
guaranteed by history to all virtuous and us from a conspiracy of Catholics and Jews
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' f_
r.~.- ,
ne
ation; every problem a simple solution.
remembers Mr. Dooley's definition of the